Our next destination is a well-known museum located on the outskirts of Lucerne. Accessible by tram and bus or even by boat if you are within the vicinity of one — Verkehrshaus der Schweiz. It’s a mouthful so I will give you the English translation: Swiss Transport Museum.

Swiss Transport Museum

Tip: Swiss Pass gives 25% off the admission fee.

With the Swiss Pass it’s only 25% off from the admission fee of CHF30. That’s to show how popular the place is and how much it’s needed to maintain the place. All other attractions covered by the Swiss Pass are free of charge except for this one. Even if it’s not covered, it’s highly recommended that you give this museum at least half a day. It will definitely change the way you look at museums and probably release the inner child in you!

The first part of the museum is the aviation part. And it’s where we finally experienced the real true meaning of an interactive museum. There was a flight simulator which you could actually pilot a plane, sort of. It’s a simple set-up, not meant for veterans but it was fun for amateurs like us. Not only that, they have almost every aircraft you could think of, hanging from the rafters.

Helicopters

“I’m guessing this is the Wright brothers’ plane.”

“Are you sure?”

“Not really.”

The Wright Brothers’ plane

“Look at that!”

Planes of all shapes and sizes.

And if you think is the end of the aviation part, guess again. They even have the replica of the Soyuz spacecraft. Thank god for good history lessons. At least I don’t have to look like an idiot while looking at the exhibits.

Is this the Soyuz?

Remember Tintin’s mission on the moon?

The next part is my favourite, possibly a pet peeve of mine, since I have a fondness for trains. And oh my, we are talking about real trains and not replicas. All parked on train tracks arranged in such a way that you can even take photos of their interiors! CHF30? I’m coming here everyday if I were a Swiss. Or probably not, I’ll get bored of it after awhile. But for a first visitor like me, this was godsend.

Life sized trains

For those who are interested in modelling trains, they have that too and it runs on certain hours of the day.

Look at the detail!

Switchyard

Look at those mountains!

You might be guessing that this is the end, oh no, this is just the beginning, through another two big doors, we are brought into the vehicle section.

Bicycles everywhere.

Race Car

Now this area about land vehicles is made impressive as you can ‘call out’ each vehicle that you’re interested it with a push of a few buttons and they are shown to you as they are all parked nicely onto a wall. Talk about Swiss efficiency.

“Yeah, enough of the efficiency mumbo-jumbo.”

“All throughout the journey you have been going on and on, and on and on about it.”

“I didn’t realize it.”

Time was not on our side anymore, we were here at 2pm and they were going to close around 5pm in the afternoon. It was already 4pm.

Maybe this is a bit of a cheat after the real trains to expect real ships.

They even have Basel in model form.

Basel

Basel close-up

Near to the end, there was a replica map of Switzerland drawn onto the floor in which we could trace back our footsteps (literally) from our entry into Switzerland via Lausanne, all the way until Lucerne. You need to wear special soft padded shoes for this.

Map of Lucerne in Google style.

A contraption.

And there you have it, my most graphic-intensive post. All dedicated to just one museum. We didn’t have time to go through all the exhibits and that’s after we spent around 3 hours for it. So I’m guessing at least 6 hours is needed if you want to watch some movies and also to touch and play all the interactive exhibits on show.